I think I did get a result Kev but iirc I ended up with 7000 to search through and I just haven't got the time.
It would not reduce the search any further for me.
We might just have to accept this evidence from Barbara Morris' book for now and, if used anywhere, we should state we cannot corroborate it, and should also quote the Spectator article using a slightly different company name, for consistency:
'What is perhaps new to us here is a company name: Plate 14 on page 33 shows three silvered glass items "acquired in 1851 from the Silvered Glass Company". One item has the "Varnish" plug and the other two have "Thompson's". Location of the items: Conservatoire National des Arts et Mêtiers, Paris'and
'
The Spectator reported the court case from 1851
in their issue 6 December 1851:
http://archive.spectator.co.uk/article/6th-december-1851/2/alttrofolto
'At the Criminal Court, on Friday, Thomas Robert Mellish and James Douglas were convicted of defrauding the Patent Glass-silvering Company, ... Douglas seven.''
Barbara Morris clearly knew the items had Varnish and Thomson plugs, but somehow she also had information that those in the CNAM were acquired from the 'Silvered Glass Company'. What we don't know is how she got that information - i.e. was it from the purchase documentation held by the Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers, from the 1851 acquisition?
She Ms Morris actually uses a different company name to that used in the Spectator article so presumably she hadn't got the name from that. For now, we might have to assume she got the company name from the CNAM paperwork.
(I'm idly wondering, if they went to Paris to register a patent, as Varnish said in the court case that he and Mellish did, then perhaps they 'deposited' some of the evidence of the patented work in the CNAM?
Iirc (and my memory is not briliant at the mo) I have read about CNAM previously to do with French Glass, and I think it might have been the place where new arts were 'lodged' as it were, and was used for those types of acquisitions from what I have read, if I am not confusing it with another organisation which is possible of course).
m